Wracked with angst over the fate of our beloved and horribly misgoverned Republic, the DiploMad returns to do battle on the world wide web, swearing death to political correctness, and pulling no punches.

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This has gotten completely out of control. I never thought I would see our country's politics reduced to the degrading levels of a Banan...

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

The Father Buries His Son: Chavez is Dead

It seems Hugo Chavez finally and formally has died. No more Schrödinger's Cat, both dead and alive at the same time.

A smart, savvy, unscrupulous street thug with natural political and leadership capabilities, Chavez had hoped to be the heir to the Castros' "Revolution." Instead, the old hermanosgallegos in Havana watch yet another politician, another pretender to their throne, shuffle off while they remain--thanks largely to Chavez's largesse with Venezuela's oil wealth which saved the Castro regime from the Castro regime. The parents bury their son.

Chavez was both an old style Big Man and a new style media star. He knew how to provoke the United States just enough to establish his street credentials with the left and the dopes in Hollywood, but not enough to share the fate of Manuel Noriega, Osama Bin-laden, or Saddam Hussein. He set up a classic peronista system of populist rhetoric, class warfare, and a tolerance for massive corruption by the inner circle. Using a skillful political ju-jitsu, he took advantage of Venezuela's democracy. He used the language and theater of nationalism, revolution, and populism to become Venezuela's most successful corruptocrat, all the while decrying Venezuela's propensity for electing corruptocrats. Proclaiming his love for democracy, he bit-by-bit dismantled Venezuela's democratic institutions and suppressed the opposition. While spouting a nationalist creed, he surrendered his country's sovereignty to the Castros, drug traffickers, and terrorists--all the while making sure that he did not damage his access to the US market and the dollars he needed to be the "anti-American" star of the left.

In short, his was a bravura performance which has left Venezuela awash in debt, crime, and poverty--the signature achievement of leftism everywhere in the world.

In short, his was a bravura performance which has left Venezuela awash in debt, crime, and poverty--the signature achievement of leftism everywhere in the world...

In short, America after the New Deal-Great Society experiment; and what we are and will be after the Obama-Shrillery regime runs its course (I'm sure the servile Leftist MSM will see to it that we have eight years of Ms. Cankles-cancresore after the O).

Huga Chavez literally stole the Venezuelan oil industry from American oil companies. What a great move, right? It allowed him to nationalize the oil industry, and create more wealth for the government. And with that move, he was able to offer to dimwitted American Congressmen, especially from the Bronx, cheaper home heating oil for American poor (American poor, now there's a misnomer if there ever was one).

But the heir of the Chavez dictatorship is facing a massive problem. While Chavez was stealing oil, and building his own wealth to a tony $2 billion, the oil infrastructer in Venezuela was not maintained and is now crumbling. Machinery lasts only so long, especially when not properly maintained, which it wasn't.

So what happens when the drills stop drilling, the wells stop producting because they have broken down, and the refineraries stop refining? What happens when the Venesuelan oil industry stops producing due to simple neglect? Just as your vehicle will cease to run because you don't put oil in the engine or don't do the simple maintainence required to keep it running, so will go the Venezuelan oil industry.

Chavez's sucessor will have to make a choice; rebuild the crumbling oil production infrastructure, which will require billions of $$ and cease some of the social welfare programs that made Chavez a "man of the people" or let the Venezuelan oil industry crater. Either way, it will not be pretty.

While the new guy may look, to the uneducated on Pan-American politics, much like the old guy, Diplomad is correct in that he does not have the gavitas of the old guy who is now worm food. He can try to pull it off, with a heavy helping of assistance from the Castro brothers, but Venezuela is not Cuba, and it will be interesting to watch Venezuela in the next couple of years.

If as it usually happens, there'll be a build-up of natural gasses. And truly, if the worms do pass the opportunity (in this case a reversal of the old 'Charlie the Tuna' commercial) there won't be anything remaining to canonize.

[Recalling the earlier Dip post, I guess I might explain - Starkist used to run a commercial explaining, "Sorry Charlie, we don't want tuna with good tastes, we want tuna that tastes good."]

"Russian Communist Party head Gennady Zyuganov today demanded an international investigation into the death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, claiming it was “far from a coincidence” that six leaders of Latin-American countries who had criticized the U.S. simultaneously fell ill with cancer."http://www.infowars.com/russian-leader-demands-investigation-of-chavez-death/

About Me

W. Lewis Amselem, long time US Foreign Service Officer; now retired; served all over the world and under all sorts of conditions. Convinced the State Department needs to be drastically slashed and reformed so that it will no longer pose a threat to the national interests of the United States.